SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT – VETERANS COURT HEARING AT THE CAPITOL
Yesterday, March 30, Texas State Senator Leticia Van de Putte, State Senator Rodney Ellis, and State Representative Allen Vaught, in association with the Texas Veterans Commission, hosted a Veterans Court Forum from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at the Capitol Auditorium (E1.004). Please find the letter from Chair Van de Putte here. (Colleague Vets Court Invite.pdf). Look for more in the next DWI Newsletter!
Tell DPS What You Think About DWI Surcharges
DPS is accepting public input regarding changes to its Indigency and Amnesty provisions for the DWI Surcharge program. If you'd like to comment, contact Rebekah Hibbs by April 3:
To read more about why taking action is important, see:
- Scott Henson's entry on Grits for Breakfast, "Comments Due Soon on Driver Responsibility Rules"
- The Houston Chronicle's "Critics: Law Puts Drivers on the Road to Ruin"
- The Texas Tribune's "Driven to Repeal"
- The Fort Worth Star-Telegram's "Some Texans want an end to a driver responsibility program"
- KVUE-Austin's "Lawmaker seeks to repeal DPS surcharge on certain traffic tickets"
- The Dallas Morning News' "Hefty surcharges for Texas drivers with violations remain mostly uncollected"
For suggested changes - go here.
Drinkers Can Track BAC with New iPhone App
December 10, 2009
A new iPhone application helps users keep track of their blood-alcohol content (BAC) and sends warning messages if data indicates the user is "buzzed" or legally intoxicated.
The Denver Post reported Dec. 2 that the free R-U-Buzzed? application developed by the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) calculates BAC based on information about the user's weight, sex, type and amount of alcohol consumed, and number of hours spent drinking. If the application determines that the user's BAC is over the legal limit of .08 percent, an anti drunk-driving warning flashes: "Don't even think about it." The app also includes a "Taxi" icon that provides the phone number of the nearest Yellow Taxi stand using the iPhone's GPS capability.
2010 DWI College
The 2010 Texas Judicial College for the Study of Alcohol and Other Drugs, better known as DWI College, will be held July 19-22 in Austin at the new Westin Austin at the Domain. Trial judges, DWI Court judges, DWI Court team members, Administrative Law Judges and university student conduct officers are all welcome to attend. Email brochures will go out in mid-April, but be sure and save the date!
Drug Recognition Experts
How relevant and reliable is the testimony of police officers or state troopers who have been trained as Drug Recognition Experts? If you're interested, here is a detailed article from Fresno, California, outlining the issues and controversy surrounding this type of testimony:
Police experts on impaired drivers controversial
Posted at 10:46 AM on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010
By Jim Guy / The Fresno Bee
Police officers often catch drivers driving erratically but find a breathalyzer test shows that they have not been drinking. Drugs may be involved -- but how to confirm that suspicion quickly?
Enter the Drug Recognition Experts -- police officers specially trained to evaluate drivers who may be under the influence of methamphetamine, marijuana and other drugs, both legal and illegal, which may impair driving.
New Technology May Allow Noninvasive Method of Detecting Alcohol Intoxication
TruTouch Technologies, an Albuquerque-based company, has announced the development of the TruTouch 2000, a portable testing device which allows a subject to place a finger on an infrared scanning system, then analyzes the level of intoxicant in the subject's system. The company claims the device can produce accurate results in less than 15 seconds, and has a built-in biometric identification system to ensure test result integrity. To read more, follow this link: http://www.vergefund.com/file/TruTouch_Announces_Successful_Testing_of_Finger_Touch.pdf
Dangerous Cocktail: Energy Drinks + Alcohol
Mixing Booze with Energy Drinks Triples Risk of Getting Drunk
By Bill Hendrick
WebMD Health News
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD
Feb. 12, 2010 -- College-age drinkers who swill alcoholic energy-drink cocktails are three times more likely than alcohol-only drinkers to leave a bar drunk.
What's more, those imbibing energy cocktails are four times more likely to attempt drunken driving, find University of Florida researchers Dennis Thombs, PhD, and colleagues.
"Combining energy drinks and alcohol can trick the brain, making people think they're sober -- or sober enough -- when they're not," Thombs tells WebMD.
Recent Cases
CHRISTOPHER JEROME WILSON, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee
No. 05-08-00802-CR
COURT OF APPEALS OF TEXAS, FIFTH DISTRICT, DALLAS
December 14, 2009, Opinion Filed
Appellant contends the trial court abused its discretion in overruling his motion to suppress evidence. He asserts his field sobriety tests should have been suppressed because they were taken after a temporary detention became unreasonable when city police waited for over thirty minutes for a state trooper to take over the DWI investigation. The evidence at the hearing on the motion to suppress showed appellant was initially detained by Melissa Police officer Jimmie Stanley. Stanley suspected appellant was intoxicated. However, because he was new to the police force and not qualified to administer field sobriety tests, he called his superior officer, Sergeant Kyle Babcock. When Babcock arrived, he also suspected appellant was intoxicated. He called state troopers to take over the investigation. The city officers called state troopers because the Melissa police force was small and usually had only two officers on duty at any given time. Turning DWI investigations over to state troopers allows the Melissa officers to be available to respond to emergency calls if necessary. It took state trooper Margarito Lopez about twenty or thirty minutes to arrive. While the Melissa officers were waiting for Lopez, they continued the investigation, asking appellant questions, obtaining consent to search his vehicle, and searching the vehicle. When Lopez arrived, he administered field sobriety tests and then placed appellant under arrest for DWI.
PHILLIP JASON HALL, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS
NO. PD-1304-08
COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TEXAS
297 S.W.3d 294
September 16, 2009, Delivered
ON STATE'S PETITION FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW FROM THE TENTH COURT OF APPEALS, JOHNSON COUNTY.
Hall v. State, 264 S.W.3d 346 (Tex. App. Waco, 2008)
In July 2006, Officer Phariss stopped Hall without a warrant for speeding in the City of Venus on Highway 67. The Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) device that Officer Phariss used to monitor traffic indicated that Hall was traveling eleven miles per hour over the sixty-five mile-per-hour speed limit. While talking with Hall, Officer Phariss noticed that Hall's breath smelled of alcohol. Officer Phariss's partner, Officer John Crane, ordered Hall to perform several field sobriety tests. Based on Hall's performance on the tests, Officers Phariss and Crane concluded that Hall was intoxicated and arrested him for driving while intoxicated (DWI).
BRIAN THOMAS KIRSCH, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS
COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TEXAS
NO. PD-0379-09
February 10, 2010, Delivered
At approximately 3:00 a.m. on May 13, 2006, appellant, a Harris County deputy sheriff, was involved in an automobile accident with a tractor-trailer in north Houston. Appellant had been working an extra job, patrolling the Pine Shadows neighborhood that night in a patrol car. As appellant drove southbound in the right-hand lane of the freeway frontage road, Jesse Gomez, in his 18-wheel tractor-trailer, was ahead of appellant, preparing to make a right-hand turn at the Airtex intersection. Because of the size of his vehicle, Mr. Gomez made a wide right turn from the center lane. He testified that, before turning, he checked his mirrors and saw appellant's patrol car about 300 feet behind him Deciding that the patrol car was a safe distance away, Mr. Gomez turned on his right-turn signal, slowed to approximately 15 m.p.h., and began his turn. Mid-turn, Mr. Gomez felt an impact to the side-rear portion of the trailer that caused his 78,000-pound trailer to skid sideways. After the trailer came to a rest, Mr. Gomez hurried to investigate the cause of the impact, discovered appellant unconscious in his patrol car, and called 911.
DWI Court Team Training Graduates in the News
Judge Elisabeth Earle’s DWI Court Team was featured in the Austin Chronicle this week in an article about specialty courts in Travis County. Travis County has the greatest number of specialty courts in the state. Judge Joel Bennett, the country’s longest serving drug court judge, is also featured in the piece. Judge Earle and her team took part in DWI Court Team Training in July 2007. You may find the article here: http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A985564
For further information regarding DWI Court Team Training, please contact Dr. Ann Blankenship or Ms. Rebecca Pitts at the Texas Center for the Judiciary.
2010 DWI Court Team Training
The 2010 DWI Court Team Training is scheduled to begin Monday, May 17, at the Westin Austin at The Domain. Four judges and their teams will take part in three and a half days of Texas Department of Transportation funded training in order to set up DWI Courts in their counties to help reduce the number of impaired drivers on Texas streets and highways. This year’s applicants come from Bexar, Calhoun, Harris and Montgomery counties. Two of these judges shared with Texas Center for the Judiciary staff their reasons for attending the training.
Judge Jo-Ann De Hoyos, Bexar County Criminal Court # 11, elected to apply for this year’s training due the high number of DWI offenders referred to Bexar County’s existing Drug Court, presided over by Judge Al Alonso. “I decided to apply for this training because over 50 percent of all referrals to the Drug Court are DWI seconds. There are no other programs tailored to help this group. I saw the DWI Court in Travis County and was impressed at the amount of supervision there was for these types of offenders.”
National Center for State Courts Sentencing Curriculum
Recently added to our DWI Resources – Sentencing page on our DWI website, you may find information regarding Evidence-Based Sentencing to Improve Public Safety and Reduce Recidivism: A Model Curriculum for Judges here: http://www.ncsconline.org/csi/education.html
Be sure and check our website for the latest information on impaired driving in Texas.This newsletter has been provided by the Texas Center for the Judiciary pursuant to a grant from TxDOT. If you have suggestions for items to be included in this Newsletter, or wish to be removed from the Newsletter mailing list, please contact:
Judge David L. Hodges
Judicial Resource Liaison
dhodges@yourhonor.com